Check out the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 hands-on video while we cook up the review

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 leakedso many times prior to its announcement late last month, that it’s almost yesterday’s news.

Nevertheless, we’ve been busy putting it through our gauntlet of testing, and will give you a quick look at what’s in store for you from Samsung’s latest tablet offering.

The Note 8.0 is set to compete directly with Apple’s iPad mini, and is spec’d competitively enough to do just that. It offers a (you guessed it) 8-inch screen of 800 x 1280 pixels resolution, which results in 189 ppi. It has a quad-core 1.6GHz Exynos 4412 processor, 2 GB of RAM, and either 16 or 32 GB of internal storage.

The Exynos 4412 may not be the latest and greatest around, but it does give you some great performance – enough to rival that of previous generation Samsung top droids.

Samsung has thrown in its Android 4.1.2 build into the Note 8.0, and it features many of the same features we’ve seen in the Galaxy Note II and Galaxy S III. We’ve definitely seen better camera performance from Samsung, but the 5MP shooter seems to be enough for the miniature tablet range.

Check out this quick video showing off the user interface in action:

From a design standpoint, the tablet takes after the Galaxy S III, which was introduced last year and while it may not be remarkable to look at, features a solid build and has a pleasant thickness of only 8mm. And, of course, no Note tablet would be complete without Samsung’s great S-pen stylus support.